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“Somewhere This”

In this magnificent free verse poem of 1925, through snatches of conversations to be heard any day—on sidewalks, in apartments, and accompanied by the ever-present elevated train, high above city streets—we feel the mystery and grandeur of existence. That is what I’ve felt reading this surprising and musical evocation of American life in a great city. Here is the poem.

Somewhere This

Trees standing in rain;
Footfalls on the pavement, feet crushing leaves;
A little girl leaving her house;
The moon, barely to be seen, shining dully in the gray sky;
A cry from somewhere;
A man scolding his wife, and being heard outside;
A man going into a library;
A shout from somewhere.
“Chicken I want,” says someone near.
“O, what do I care,” says a girl.
“He loves me, I’m sure,” says a girl.
“What the hell do I care,” says a boy.
“What did he do then?” says a man.
The elevated comes roaring by.
Rain falls quietly.
It is cold.
It grows darker.
In the library nearby are books of history.
“My, my, what shall I do?” asks a girl.
“That’s what he died of,” says a young man.
“He was in the war,” says a girl.
“She’s the prettiest girl I know,” says someone.
The elevated can now be hardly heard; it is roaring elsewhere.
Water falls from the trees.
“O, what do I care,” says a girl.
“I love her,” says a boy of a girl.
“Whoo, that’s rich,” says a young man.
A good dirty story is being told.
A man worries about the money he has.
The elevated comes roaring by somewhere else.
“O, hell, no!” says someone.
The moon now can hardly be seen.
“I like poetry,” says a girl near the library.
“O, what do you care?” says a girl to a girl.
“It’s such a long time,” says a girl.
An elevated goes roaring by.
“O, my, my, what shall I do?” says someone.
The elevated goes roaring by elsewhere.
“Isn’t he crazy?” says a girl, giggling.
“Who in hell cares?” says a young man.
“No, I didn’t see the newspaper this morning,” says someone.
“He better had pay me,” says someone.
“Who put out the lights?” asks a man.
A boy and a girl are together.
What is that girl thinking of?
What are the meals in that house, with the lights on in the——first and fourth floors?
Lights come up in the second floor, too.
The lights in the second floor of another house are out.
Men and women, boys and girls, are on the streets and——in houses.
It is later now; it is after seven.
It is raining very thinly.
It is cold.
The elevated goes roaring by and it is later still.
The moon can hardly be seen.
It is later,
O, it is later.